


Rewrite the Stars

by WeOffendedShadows



Series: Aunt May's Wayward Home for Struggling and Weird Superheros & Associates who Fail at Adulting [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, BAMF Michelle, Best Friends, But not slow burn, Caretaker May Parker, Depression, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, High School, Identity Issues, Identity Reveal, Inappropriate Behavior, Insomnia, Michelle Jones antagonizes everyone, Mutual Pining, No powers Michelle, Observant Michelle Jones, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker is a Little Shit, Pining, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Spider-Man: Homecoming, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Michelle Jones, Protective Tony Stark, Secret Identity, Social Anxiety, Sokovia Accords, Teenage Superheroes are dumb, Teenagers, Tender care, Tony Stark Has A Heart, burn - Freeform, protective may parker, really dumb
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-28
Updated: 2018-08-30
Packaged: 2019-04-14 03:40:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14127288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WeOffendedShadows/pseuds/WeOffendedShadows
Summary: Peter Parker is a little shit sometimes. He is an idiot if he believes that Michelle Jones doesn't know who he is and what he does, and how often he gets hurt. Too bad for him, she's more stubborn than he is by far, and she doesn't put up with any of his stupid.Including not dating her because of something like "her safety"---Where in Michelle takes care of a dumb and injured Peter Parker, even when he tries to push her away; and Aunt May starts planning.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I got pulled back into a fandom. I didn't mean for it to happen, but damn it, Zendaya is so fucking cute and I just adore her, and now I adore MJ/Peter Parker in MCU, not that I've seen the movie. 
> 
> This is the first part of a series of one-shots, two shots, many shots, whatever connected by Aunt May's home and her amazing talent of attracting superheroes who are terrible at Adulting, self-care, and life in general. 
> 
> EDIT: sorry fixed a few grammar/spelling stuff at the last third or so. 
> 
> Please, read & review. Bookmark if you'd like. If you know me from another fandom, welcome. If you are just meeting me, enjoy my older stuff.

Peter Parker was face down in his tatertots or whatever he was eating when Michelle sat down a few seats from her losers. She raised an eyebrow at loser #2, Ned Leads, but he just shrugged and kept eating his sandwich. The fact that Ned wasn’t pestering Peter about whatever reason for the dive into high school torture known as EPSCO food meant either he already knew or had attempted without success. Probably the first; Peter couldn’t keep his mouth shut about anything, damn that boy. 

She sighed melodramatically and stood up enough to slide down a few seats to sit next to loser #1. Ned jumped up when she dropped her book onto the table; Peter just groaned or snored. It was hard to tell from the muffling effect of the food. 

“Hey Loser,” Michelle said and leaned against Peter’s right shoulder.

The shoulder he avoided touching against anything and everyone, including Ned, which included a weird twist with a limbo bend to side step a shoved freshmen and a massive tube of some senior’s civics project. 

Peter sat up with a start and a shriek of pain; he pulled away and looked at her as if seeing her for the first time today, though the betrayal and hurt poked through his expression. “Mich- MJ – I mean Michelle,” Peter stammered, blinking fast and scanning everything around him. 

“Sleep much?” she asked as an pseudo-apology, steeling her face for indifference and nonchalance. “lifting too many physics books again?”

“Ned spoke up before Peter could close his mouth fully for a response. “He got caught in that scuffle between Spiderman and those bank robbers yesterday.” 

A scuffle that involved a few explosions, a decent amount of property damage, and Ironman having to come in to assist. A scuffle that had numerous videos posted on the variety of websites and reddit threads of Spider-man being thrown into a wall hard enough to collapse it on him. 

“yeah, um,” Peter said, relaxing enough to actually be near her, “got caught in the crowd and-“

“Uh huh.” Michelle stared at Peter who graciously looked away, then at Ned, who didn’t. It was probably more like a glare, but she was okay with that. Satisfied with their responses, well Peter’s at least, she returned to her book and started to flip through the pages to find where she left off from History. 

“Why do you care?” Peter relaxed more, which meant his posture slacked to almost boneless and he leaned forward again, ready to dive head first into his uneaten food. He attempted to hold his head up, but that idiot apparently involved his right arm. The shriek was silent this time, but from the corner eye, the pain was encompassing, enough to close his eyes. 

Michelle slid his tray away, pushed it at Leeds actually, and replaced it with a bundled up sweatshirt – stolen from Peter. His head touched the softer material; while he didn’t sit up in surprised, he did open his eyes and try to look at her without moving his face. 

“Don’t, loser,” she replied, but shifted enough to press her hip against his. Michelle turned a page without reading the one before. “But, I’m counting your pudding as a willing payment, Leeds.”

She grabbed it off of his tray without looking at either of them; instead leaning further into the sweatshirt, Peter relaxed against her to rest his head against her shoulder with a heavy sigh. 

“The hell?” Michell said, but didn’t dare move.

“Comfy,” Peter muttered and didn’t move.

She didn’t either.

The problem with Peter Parker, well one of the numerous problems if one was observant and she was very observant, was his damn insistence at keeping his Spider-man activities a secret from her. This, coupled with his innate ability to act pathetic and needed without pushing or demanding anything of anyone [Cindy and Liz referred to it as a healthy dose of mangst that started around the time his uncle died, but as an avid reader and a feminist, Michelle refused to accept that as a real word], would be the single greatest pick-up maneuver at Midtown.

Except for Peter’s complete and utter cluelessness.

His nerdery pushed people away before they even got close enough to see this, and well, he didn’t have the best track record concerning people, women especially. With Liz gone, Cindy over the moon – damn that Parker for cursing her with this ability for stupid puns – about some new boy or science experiment or both, and Betty oblivious to anything that was outside of her, that left Michele as the only teenage woman he was actually capable of talking to as sole sufferer of his fucking puppy tendencies.

Michelle groaned as she took more of Peter’s significant weight against her frame, but held against it, sitting up for both of them. He turned so his right arm was safe in front of him and her, cradled in his lap and daring her to take it from him. Ass. But his breathing steadied and slowed, as the anxiety and pain dissolved against her without reservations. 

“Damn,” she whispered; she looked at him and an awkward sensation and weight within her chest on her sternum shook didn’t surprise her. Not from looking at the face of a seventeen-year-old who had too much stress and anxiety to actually function like an adult. 

“Um, he has a concussion, too,” Ned said. Michelle lifted her eyes to look at loser #2. “Yeah, a decent enough one that May kept him up. Told me this morning. Didn’t sleep enough.”

“Don’t need the doctoral, dork,” she replied with as much distain and apathy she could muster in her voice without terrifying him. She shifted her eyes back to her book and the words on the page, but her attention was on the dumb idiot who tried too hard to do more good than he was capable of and achieved that goal. Whatever it was, she knew that it wasn’t a concussion that kept him awake last night, or the previous night, or even the one before that. If Peter actually thought she wasn’t observant enough to see the effects of his damn heroics on his life, especially after staying late as he tended, he was even dumber than Flash. 

If she did reach up and thread her fingers through the mop of what Peter liked to call hair when he shifted, more of a jerk from a surprise, to calm him. Ned didn’t say a thing. 

No one did.

When the bell rang for the end of lunch, Michelle tightened her grip on his hair enough to keep him seated while Ned stood up. He gave them a nod, with a damn sappy smile that he gave every time he saw the two of them together in some manner and that she hated, and took their trash away without speaking another word. Not a single student looked at the pair of them as they left, most avoided walking near her when she glared at few of them dared to step close. Flash refused to meet her gaze, and the rest of the Acdec team just looked over at their captain and teammate. If anyone of them had a soft smile, Michelle didn’t acknowledge it. 

The second bell, signifying the start of class rang, and Michelle and Peter were left alone in the lunch room. They remained there when the class ended and the next started, and every subsequent bell until the end of the day. The few people who stopped by took a look at who was still in the lunch room and stayed clear. The custodial staff smiled at her, and she waved back, but they didn’t bother them either. 

Just Peter and her, alone in the lunch room; him leaning or, more likely, passed out if she heard his soft snores right. He hadn’t really moved, but the dumbass was limber enough to make any position comfortable, and Michelle had sat in the same worthless chair for hours before at the library reading so this was just no different. No distractions or annoyances. Just them.

Michelle grabbed her phone from her backpack between her legs, moving as slow as she could so she didn’t disturb Peter’s rest. Though, she did have to pull away to grab hold of her cell at the bottom of her bag, and Peter just hung in the air until her arm returned. She would have laughed if she wasn’t worried about waking him. 

Whatever the reason, if Peter hadn’t been sleeping well, and if this was the first time he’d been able to (and it seemed like it was), it was a worth a numb ass and arm and probably the detentions she’d got for ditching class. 

She sent a text to May at 3:30 – yes they exchanged numbers and texted often in the ever worrisome task of Peterwatch, even if he refused to tell his best female friend his secret of being a superhero – that Peter was okay and with her at school. He had passed out and they’d probably need to get a ride or something, since walking to the subway, and riding it, would not be beneficial to him. The quick response and short answer of “K” from May was all the support she needed to know that she did the right thing and they’d get a ride when Peter was ready. 

Michelle had thread her fingers back through his hair and engrossed in her book; Peter wrapped his arm under hers and slide just a bit closer. He was shorter than her, only by a few inches, but that was probably enough to make this a moderately comfortable position. If she was perfectly okay with it and actually enjoying it, she would never tell anyone. 

At some point, the custodial staff came in and cleaned up, leaving their table the only one still set up in the lunch room. Mr. Roberts smiled at her, and she had the decency to blush and look away from him, even though she also held Peter’s hair tighter for a moment. They didn’t bother the pair of them; Michelle silently thanked them with a nod and returned to the silence and her book and her Peter. She meant Peter, no pronoun in front of it. Nope. Not at all. Just her and her thoughts and waiting for May to text when she was on her way. Things were good. Quiet. 

Even if twenty minutes later, an unknown number started blasting her phone with nothing but emojis and blank boxes of emojis her phone didn’t recognize or replicate, disturbing their peace and quiet. 

Michelle attempted to read the first three, deleted the next ten without reading them, then just started to ignore the steady stream of a single fucking emoji texts that came to her phone. 25 five of them. 

She had to put her phone on silent just to read a page of her book, The Utopia of Rules, without having to deal with the vibrations shaking the words. Peter still hadn’t woken up. Well, maybe woken up was the wrong phrase. A few times he asked her what was going on, his voice shaky and soft. She turned her head to his – and maybe placed her face in his hair and took a swift breath through her nose - and whispered for him to stop drooling and just get some rest. Each time, a nod and the gentle almost non-existent snores were enough of an answer. His steady rise and fall of his chest against her arm was also a wonderful metronome for her to read to. 

“Seriously,” Michelle asked as she turned to the last chapter of her book, “this exhaustion does not look good on you.”

“Huh? Look good? On me?” he asked, but didn’t move thankfully. 

Damn, her inside voice becoming an outside voice? “I said does you no good, nerd. We’ve got that horrible math project to do this weekend.”

“Oh, sorry.” 

And damn that pathetic and horrible puppy dog tendency of his. “What was it? Partying on Thursday night? Getting out there and getting smashed, stoned, fucked up?”

Peter snorted a laugh and rubbed his head against her arm as he shook his head in response. “no,” he said, yawning, “nothing like that. Just-“

“Lies,” she smiled and reached up to scratch the top of head again. “Next time, just keep it to the weekend. Can’t do this for you all the time.”

At least at school, her mind finished for her – not that she wanted to have Peter park fall asleep on her ever again because this was not a fun experience in any way shape or form, and she wasn’t smiling and enjoying the nearness of him, but –

Peter gripped her arm tighter just before the lunch room doors slammed open, stopping her from jumping. Through the doors, Tony Stark strolled in like he owned the place (really it was only 13% of the school was built with Stark Industries donations) and continued through the nearly empty room, certainly not caring he was in a high school and there were supposed to be ways to act. His pristine blazer was in direct competition with the dirt covered hot pink shirt and plaid pants. And those damn sunglasses looking like they were stolen from Elton John’s garbage can because they were too hideous for that man’s standards. 

“Michelle!” Stark shouted. To the two other people in the room. One of whom was clearly trying to sleep. “My belle!” 

Jackass ignored her glare at the damn song reference and continued to walk over to them. 

Peter tried to sip up, or at least he was muttering something like that, but his words were into her arm, and Michelle touched his hand when he tried. He stopped moving, completely and unnaturally still for a moment, then his weight was next to her fully again. “You rest,” she ordered to the teen. “And you-“

“And me,” Stark replied as he sat down across from Michelle. He stared back at her, meeting her glare with a smirk that littered magazines. “It seems like you have my intern hostage.”

Michelle didn’t say a word. 

“He does have a job and such, even though-“

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Stark,” Peter replied, and, for the first time, fought against Michelle’s touch and presence. Even if it was only for a brief moment and there was no real strength behind it. He tried to sit up and move away again, but she tapped his forehead with a finger, and he relaxed back against her. Michelle even offered her arm more fully to him so he could hold it close and cuddle with it, which Peter did without questioning. She felt his smile-on-her-arm-thing was big enough. 

[Phrasing Michelle. Phrasing]

“Hush, nerd,” she muttered at him without taking her eyes off of Stark. “What you doing here?’

“Checking on my intern, my dear. Some awful stories about-“

“Don’t “my dear” me,” she growled out, her teeth clenched. Peter squeezed her arm some of the frustration and anger faded. Not all, but enough that her angry glare turned into a bored glare. 

“Please, Mr. Stark,” Peter said, his voice almost completely muffled by her arm. 

“Right, sorry,” Stark said without any hint of weight behind the apology. “I’m checking on Stark Intern Petey McPeter here. Missed meeting Happy for a ride to SI today, and you know, well, you don’t know, but you know how Happy gets when its no-call no-show; leading me to-“

“I think it’d be obvious he isn’t going to work, today.” Michelle changed a quick glance at him before returning to look at Stark. “or this weekend for that matter.”

“No, that isn’t true, MJ, I’m okay, really, I’m fine and-“ Peter said, shaking his head against her. She squeezed his hand and he quieted down. Stark raised an eyebrow at her; she returned it. 

“This is super important sciency stuff, science-bro stuff,” Stark added. “And Peter is needed. Besides he’ll love it. It’ll be fun.” He took off his sunglasses and placed them in front of him to look directly at her, actually making eye contact. Kinda, his eyes were searching her, looking for something. 

“Well, this is super obvious sleepy stuff, exhausted Peter is poor,” Michelle trailed off and then smiled at Stark without an ounce of kindness, “intern stuff.”

The smile he wore the entire time final ended. A hardness that Michelle had never seen before, one that must have been born from a cave in the Middle East – what she reads, it should be obvious that she knows things like this. She was not sure she liked seeing it on him.

Didn’t mean she was going to let him see her anxiety he created. “Michelle, I’m good, really, you don’t have to-“

“Quiet, Petey, adults are talking,” Stark said. 

“Peter choose this internship, Ms. Jones,” Stark said. He leaned forward and rested on his elbows, not taking his eyes from hers. “Knowing full well the sacrifices he’d have to make.”

“Right, MJ,” Peter added, “it’s okay, I’m okay. I can go in, and I’ll take it easy and-“

Michelle mimicked the action the best she could with Peter still attached to her. It helped that it kept the fledgling superhero (spiderling?) a bit further away from Stark. “Maybe, but he also is a teenager. Which means, unlike some adults who can keep themselves going on coffee and booze, he needs sleep. He needs time to recover.”

“I’ve upgraded from coffee to red bull, but thank you for noticing, Ms. Jones,” Stark started. “And in terms of Peter, he’s-“

“This isn’t war, Mr. Stark,” she said, dropping her hand to her book. “The world isn’t in danger because Peter Parker missed a science outing with Tony Stark and Bruce Banner. The world will be if he goes without actually resting and recovering. If he is pushed into doing some foolish experiment because someone thought he was finally old enough and wise enough to handle despite telling him otherwise months ago, going as far as taking his equipment away.”

“How’d you-“ He looked at Peter before returning to her. 

“Pssh,” she said, and let her smile grow. 

“I didn’t tell her anything, Mr. Stark, I swear. I kept my - I mean, I kept to that contract thing you had me sign, yeah,” Peter stammered and muttered and struggled to get the words out past a yawn. 

“Right,” she replied, overly sweetly. “I’m just very observant.”

“Clearly, Michelle Belle.” Stark smirked at her in return.

“She hates nicknames, Mr. Stark,” Peter said.

“What?” Stark looked between the pair. “Everyone nicknames, Petey, and even if they don’t-“

Michelle kicked him for good measure; Stark had the decency to curse at it, even if it was only a graze. “Holy fuck, steel toes much?”

“So, is it truly necessary that Peter join you today?” she asked. Her phone blinked on; twenty-six messages, one from May. 

Stark tilted his head and looked at her. She felt like she was being examined like some blueprint or design that he intended to take apart and repurpose or just take apart for the sheer fun and pointlessness of it. The man was smart enough. Rich enough. He probably could do that.

Peter wouldn’t let him, a soft and distant voice said. Michelle choose to accept the advice without acknowledging the source of that voice who was speaking of things it didn’t understand and wanted things that it shouldn’t want. 

“No,” Stark finally said. “Of course not. I mean, look at the kid, he’s like two breezes away from falling completely over.”

Michelle nodded and turned her attention back to her book. But a stray thought climbed up from within her when Stark didn’t move. “Good. I figured as much.”

“I’m glad you agree, wait, what? You knew?” 

“Yes. You already knew that Peter wasn’t going to go, probably May called you and told you what was going down as his guardian she is meant to be responsible like that, and if anything else, May is responsible.” Michelle flipped back a page and scanned it from bottom to top, looking for where she left off before the loud entrance of Tony. “And even if she didn’t, you still knew that he is in no shape for whatever experiment in quotations you wish to do, especially for the long weekend.”

There it was. Third paragraph, fifth line. That’s a good spot to return to. She took in the sentence, the shape of the words and the order and the briefest of understanding and meaning before she closed the book. “Despite whatever attitude you share with the public, this idiot speaks very highly of you. And while he is prone to exaggeration, he is not a liar. Or at least not a very good one. Which means I can accept some of what he says about you, Mr. Stark, despite your companies horrendous policies on exploiting third-world countries and the lower classes. Because of that recommendation, you would not knowingly put Peter in harm, especially by choice and if the harm was completely avoidable and unnecessary, like, I don’t know, a practice, training, or whatever you want to call it when you go up to that science center in quotations up north.”

Tony Stark sat silently across from the pair. Michelle continued to put her book away, then her (Peter’s, that damn voice said again) sweatshirt into her bag. She grabbed her phone and flipped through the messages, deleting all that came from the unknown sender without reading them, before pausing on May’s last message: she was pulling up. 

“Because of those facts, Mr. Stark,” Michelle said, “I can assume, hopefully without making an ass out of just you, that Peter be safe with you and from you if need be, which in this case given his severe exhaustion and recovering from injuries, it is the latter.”

Peter stirred slightly against her, and she squeezed his hand again before running her thumb over it. Stark couldn’t see them, it, so it was worth giving her loser #1 some comfort. 

Instead of arguing or berating her for speaking to him like that, Stark just laughed. A real one, not like his fake ones during interviews and such, but a honest and true laugh. 

Michelle found it more disturbing than his hard glare. 

“Damn it,” he said, mirth still in his voice, “just fucking damn it.”

“Language,” Michelle added, “there are children in this fucking place.”

The hardness was gone, replaced with a smile and a fucking twinkle in his eye – Dumbledore he ain’t – and Michelle darkened her own glare. “Thor almighty,” Stark said, standing up. “He was right.”

“Who?”

“Peter.” He pointed at the teenager still holding her arm, who now was trying to hide his face completely from Stark. And her. “Said you were stubborn as hell, and too damn smart observant to be healthy.”

“Not the ‘to be healthy’ bit,” Peter muttered against her. 

She was torn between staring at Stark and staring at Peter. Either way, her mouth was open slightly and she felt herself blink very slowly as her mind reset. Peter talked about her to Stark, of all people? Spider-man shared information with Ironman regarding a perfectly normal and annoying pseudo-friend from high school who picks on him all the time? What the fuck?

“Language, Ms. Jones,” Stark said and stepped away from the table. 

“Bite me, old man,” she snapped back, but looked away to her phone, trying to formulate a response to May that they were on their way. 

Instead of getting angry or defensive, or both, Stark turned and walked away, laughing under his breath. “Just make sure he’s healthy by Monday, he does have work, and I can’t let anyone think Tony Stark is a kind and generous boss. I’ll cover the expenses.”

“What?” Michelle looked from her phone, mid-word, at Stark’s back.

“Yep, it’ll be taken care of when you get to May’s; you’re hired, be tee dubs, congrats on the job. It’ll look great on a resume. Heal him, Florence, so he can do sciencey stuff in quotations as you put it.” He didn’t turn around or looked at her. The bastard just walked out the door without another word to either of them. 

Leaving her, a confused Michelle and a bashful, exhausted Peter, alone in the lunch room, waiting while May arrived to pick them up. Given Peter’s refusal to look up from her arm, she was left alone with her thoughts, which mainly settled on one theme: 

What the fuck was all that?


	2. Tantalian Ordeal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter, being Peter, does the dumb well. Let's watch him.

Peter was alone. Been that way for a week. By choice, too.

Swinging between buildings, running on roof tops, there was no one to contact if he needed it. Not that he wanted to. Peter made sure it was clear that he didn’t want them around. Any of them. Even attempting to be mean to Ned and Michelle. 

Karen turned off, no man at the chair, no Aunt May or Mr. Stark to contact by design. No Michelle. 

His grip tighten on the webbing as for a moment as he swung. 

He tried his best to make it happen: during the school day avoided Ned and Michelle, had Happy pick him up and drive him to SI where he’d avoided Mr. Stark, and came home late enough that Aunt May was either asleep or he’d have to step out immediately for patrols that lasted probably longer than they should. But he did it. A week without the people who cared about him, in their strange ways. 

Damn his own misery. 

It wasn’t like he planned this. He hadn’t wanted to give up everyone around him, isolate himself into an existence where he barely talked or looked people in the eye or – but this is was the life he needed. This was what he needed to do in order to keep them all safe. He knew this.

He just didn’t have to like it. 

Peter figured it all out the Friday when Michelle had a strange conversation with Mr. Stark, both of them ignoring him and his wishes completely to the point where they decided what he would do as if he was a child. Or rather, it started after that conversation, but not by much if he could remember correctly; it started after Happy drove up with Aunt May in a SUV. Michelle and Aunt May were able to get him situated in the back seat with almost no trouble. 

And Michelle sat right next to him, let him fall to her arm, be comfortable and safe and taken care of. He was comfortable and safe and taken care of. Not that he needed it, he tried to say, but Peter was aware at the time just how much pain he was in, and how exhausted the last few days of patrol had been, and she was extremely comfy. He said as much. 

He couldn’t remember if she smiled or insulted him. 

He screwed up. Right then. Not that anyone else noticed. He did; he could remember how his heart pounded, his breathing faltered. All because, somewhere along the way, the way she looked to him, at him, changed. In a better, more wonderful way. 

He nearly cried after he sent her away just as they arrived at Aunt May’s apartment with a lie that he didn’t need her (or want her, he couldn’t remember what hurtful thing he said to send a brief shock of pain through her cold eyes), but couldn’t bear that either. He just locked himself in his room and told Aunt May to leave him alone. He was fine. He didn’t deserve comfort. He didn’t need it. 

The world just wouldn’t let him catch his breath; that’s all. 

There was a distinct pattern in his life, a kind of luck or karma that just really liked to mess with him in perverse ways. Such as: getting spider powers only for Uncle Ben to be murdered because of him; gain the attention of one Tony Stark enough to assist him in Germany and gain a new suit, but only to lose said suit after a causing a great deal property damage; finally get a date with a girl who actually liked him for him only for Peter ditching her at homecoming to go fight the girl’s father and stop him from selling alien weapon tech, which just led to her father being arrested, a building dropped on him, and the girl leaving the state. 

Only the usual high school drama for a teenage hero.

Peter saw the real cause too, the reason behind all the bad that happened in his life and his friends (few that they were) and family (one that she was). Him. Just him. In this pattern of luck, he was the reason so many people were gone. Even if he did get hurt, that didn’t stop others from being hurt worse, though not like him. Even if he lose something, they would lose something far more valuable: Aunt May, Mr. Stark, Liz. 

There was no one to blame but him. 

The acknowledgement of something wonderful, something he had never felt before about a person, he also saw the horror that could only come from it, every moment that would end with pain and suffering for people around him.

The fact that something decent only meant that in the end, he would hurt her in ways neither could imagine. Ways he didn’t want to imagine, but his mind wouldn’t stop from trying. 

[He tried once to explain his theory and his proof to Ned, but he kept speaking in circles and ended up hyperventilating as his mind raced with everything that could go wrong, that he was directly responsible for or not. That was not a fun Friday movie night]

Peter stayed in his room for the majority of the weekend; not that he actually slept or did anything except stare at the bottom of the bunk bed above him. He planned best he could how to handle both Ned and Michelle at school, how to avoid Aunt May and Mr. Stark, how to get himself out of their life. Away from him before he caused them any more harm. 

Not much else to do when he couldn’t sleep due to night terrors and general insomnia. 

Peter landed roughly on an untarred rough roof and rolled to avoid destroying his ankles or hands. He came up with a heavy exhale and sagging shoulders. Around him, the grey skyline of the city just hung over everything, pressing down on it until things would collapse under their own weight. 

The next week was a haze. He remembered ditching class to avoid Ned and Michelle, walking other directions, possibly hurtful and mean things said; he knew he skipped AdDec practice every day this week, some flimsy excuse to Mr. Harrington about his internship that may have involved him immediately looking away from Michelle when she saw him talking to their coach. But he couldn’t remember what his homework was for any of his classes. He remembered how he went straight out patrolling after school, avoiding Happy without a look and Mr. Stark without picking up his calls or texts. But he couldn’t remember just what happened on the patrol.

Coming home though, he knew all of that. Late at night well past midnight, he would crawl into his room as silently as possible and collapse onto his bed. No last minute hug from Aunt May, or gentle kiss on his forehead. 

[Okay, maybe he imagined that one; Peter couldn’t remember if that happened recently or just after his parents died and he came to live with Aunt May and Uncle Ben.]

“Mr. Parker?” Karen’s voice roared in his ears, not that she was any louder than normal. He just hadn’t heard her for a few days now, almost forgotten what she sounded like. “I sense a mild discomfort, possible fracture, and-“

“I’m fine, Karen,” he said and ran towards the edge. He fired off another line of webbing to a building as he jumped, feeling the tension in his arms and shoulders jerk and whip his body for a moment. “I’m fine, so go back to being off-line.” 

Peter flicked his wrist and shot another burst of webbing. Without looking or thought, he released the strand in his other hand. For an instant, his senses lit up the world, and everything was aflame and buzzing; his body almost exploding with information. Even the panicky and fiery spider-sense sent shivers and tingles of fear from his toes to the top of his skull. 

For that single heartbeat, Peter forgot. 

But the webbing would always grip a building: flagpole, window or windowsill, or even just the brick and stone walls. And he’d squeeze his hand, grabbing hold of the webbing, saving himself once again.

The heartbeat that followed that moment, that split second of uncertainty, was the heaviest he ever felt. It told him he was alive and still moving forward. 

Each time.

Without fail.

He continued with the swing until he was just above another rooftop, somewhere in the Bronx. If he asked Karen for an update on his GPS coordinates, she’d tell him, but that would be relying on someone who could be taken away from him. 

He wanted solitude. He wanted to be alone. He would never have silence, or even quiet, ever again; his sense of hearing was amplified to where he took a week to figure out how to block out every annoying, everyday sound that most people never heard. But solitude? He could have that. 

Peter sat on the edge of the roof, facing west. The sun was just starting to set.

A week without Ned. Without Aunt May. Without Happy, Mr. Stark, or Karen (despite her attempts to keep watch over him). A week without Michelle. This was what needed to happen. Too many people had been hurt because of him. He’d seen too many lost, too many just up and left, while he somehow remained. This was my choice, Peter told himself over and over again. This was the right choice. 

That day, six days ago and some hours (4 hours and 39 minutes), he felt safe. Comfortable. Happy. Not just content or relaxed, but honest to Thor and Odin happy. Even in pain, physical at least, Peter knew what that feeling was. He remembered it from when Uncle Ben was alive. 

But Uncle Ben wasn’t. Not anymore. 

And just like that, the dreams dissolved into nightmares into night terrors. They loved to remind him of what he had done, the people he had hurt and those who were taken away because of his actions. The night terrors crept up slowly and overwhelmed him, swallowed him in an inky, vicious maw of darkness that clung to his body as it devoured him. They often showed him Aunt May getting hurt, killed. Or Ned the next time. Maybe other kids from school. His teachers. Mr. Stark, Happy. The Avengers. Everyone he knew. 

But not Michelle. Not her; his dreams hadn’t sacrificed her yet. 

Peter looked at his hands, at his wrists and the web launchers on them, the pattern of webbing sprawled across his suit, enveloping him. He could feel the tension. How tight the webs snapped when they clung to walls and pulled on him. Always could. That tension was familiar and unforgettable. 

That night, six days, four hours, and thirty-nine minutes ago, the dreams were upon him again, showing him what he caused. If he closed his eyes, he could still feel the cold wind barreling past him over a river as he dove to catch a falling person thrown from up high. He could hear the horrible off-key laughter all around him, almost circling above only to come from below. 

All Peter could do was watch as he reached out and fired a strand of webbing at the body, his other shooting one to the rusted bridge above him. He could see it collide with the red metal. As he held that strand tightly, refusing to let go in an attempt to save them, a thunderous crack echoed in the wind, silencing everything around him, including the laughter.

Peter felt the line become taut with a heavy load at the bottom, just swaying now. The physicist in him knew the result, could see it before he even looked. He didn’t want to look. 

But with his eyes closed, even now, Peter could see as his head turned to see the person he failed to save. The person he murdered.

His eyes fell upon MJ, staring lifeless and apathetic up at him. 

“Peter?!” Karen shouted, and he grabbed at his ears. He sucked in a deep breath, gasping as air filled his burning lungs. “Peter, your vitals are showing extreme duress. Are you-“

“I’m fine, Karen,” he lied. “I am.” 

His hands faded in and out of focus; his chest burned and his heart was so loud in his ears, overpowering anything else from the city. Peter tried to wipe his eyes dry, but all he could do was shift his mask against his face. The world came back to him, and he felt the nightmare fade back away behind his eyes and mind. 

His heart beat, strong and full and unrelenting in its pace, overwhelmed him, devouring his focus. He shivered as the spring wind turned cold over New York, and his hands wouldn’t stop twitching or cramping up. 

“Peter? Is there someone you’d like me to call?” Karen asked. Damn AI didn’t shut down like he expected; he did tell her to, right? For an AI, she showed a great deal of empathy and compassion. The code must be - 

Peter shook his head. “Really, I’m okay.”

“You are lying Peter,” she said; she didn’t press for a response. Karen just went silent, not off or sleep mode this time. He could hear her gentle hum, a sign that she was watching over him. 

Life, it seemed, liked to taunt him with low dangling favors for him to starve beneath. Peter stood up and stretched briefly before continuing his patrol. And somehow finding his way home without Karen. 

The choice was simple; it always was, even if he couldn’t see it then. Uncle Ben told him “with great power comes great responsibility.” Peter knew what he had meant, and what he had to do. He had the responsibility to keep Michelle alive. No matter the cost. No matter the action. Just the result. Her life.

It would be safe to stay away from him. And Spider-man. 

He could never tell her his secret. All of it. Any of it. Peter figured out the price of being a hero; it was easy once he knew how to read it. Trust. Friendship. Love. He paid these willingly, if only because it was what was required of him. If only because it would keep the people who mattered safe.

And away from him.

The primal part of him noticed it before his analytical mind caught up, and his body alit with a vivid numbness as a vibration shuddered through his body. Peter turned to look at the large puff of smoke a few buildings over as it traveled north. Karen’s HUD filled his vision, immediately granted more information that he wanted, and he took off towards it at a run. 

Peter swung over a building, flipped and released into a drive down the side, and used the momentum to throw himself even higher with another shot of webbing. He didn’t pay attention to the numbers or reports on social media that Karen occasionally flashed before him. He had calculations to do. At the apex, he could see an elevated subway line, the front car a fiery mess. “Reports coming regarding a malfunctioning subway line. Details conflicting. Projected problem-“

Peter saw the breaks squeezing as hard they could, only to produce sparks and no discernable friction. He saw the people inside, undetailed but panicky and frightened, slamming on windows and running away from each other. From the front of the car.

As he fell, Peter blinked as he finished his math, the answers lining up in a way he did not like. “Karen, contact Mr. Stark, and anyone else who might be in the area. Give them whatever you can.”

“And the Guy-in-the-Chair?”

Peter didn’t reply. 

In freefall for a breath, he snapped his hand out and fired a strand of webbing towards the cars. His shoulders jerked in place, but he held tight with both hands and swung himself to the front car: a wreck of metal and flames. He landed less gracefully than normal, skidding and sliding against the metal with a struggle to grip onto it. His collar-bone howled; the freshly healed bones shifting from his movement. 

Peter used his dismount to whip himself towards the front and inside the car through a mangled hole that was created from whatever caused this subway train to explode. The world was a cacophony of vibrations: the frightened passengers, even just a car behind him, calling and shouting for help, cellphones blaring through the air, flames shaking and snapping at him. 

“The speed of the subway train is increasing,” Karen said. 

“See, this is why rollercoasters need to stay at amusement parks. City engineers are terrible at building these things, and well-“ 

He tore a shard of glass and metal away from the cabin and slid in without touching anything. Flames or metal. 

The controls were gone. Whatever caused this to happen was done with the intention of destruction. Unpreventable destruction. 

“Peter, at the speed we are travelling, we will not make the curve.”

“Good. I mean, not that curves are bad or anything, just not my type. I’m just a bit more lean and mean kind of guy and-“

“Peter,” Karen’s voice got really somber and serious for an AI. Even worse than Aunt May’s. “This train will jump the track.”

He swallowed and nodded. Most of the front was gone. The metal frame twisted and burnt, shards of glass on the edges of some points. Through the open air, he could see the end of the track.

The numbers he needed, all the bits and pieces of random facts he memorized in a deep part of his mind, floated forward, filling in the gaps for equations he didn’t know he needed and producing answers to questions before he asked them. A second was enough time to figure this out. But he didn’t know if it would be enough. 

“Umm,” Peter said, looking to his sides. “Karen?” 

“Peter, you need to-“

“How much webbing do I have left?”

“This isn’t a wise-“

“Because, I mean, webs stop movement all the time, right? With real spiders? Things get caught in them and-“

“Your webbing is not designed in that manner, Peter,” Karen said. “You would have to hold onto one end of the strand and-“

“Good to know,” he said and started to fire as many shots as he could to his left and right, not even seeing where they hit, or if they did. His reflexes were fast enough he could let go and grab almost at the same time, and while it was more difficult, he was able to get about fifteen strands of web between both sides of the train. 

Course that meant him, holding onto them, pulling his arms and shoulders back as the strands stretched from the momentum of the train and its cars. 

He didn’t scream. He couldn’t. His jaw locked up. The curve of the train was clear in front of them, with a building of sandstone and mortar lacking windows just beyond that. It was coming up a lot faster than he thought

Peter clenched his jaw and tightened his arms, trying to squeeze inwards.

“Speed reduced to 97%. Train derailment still imminent: twenty seconds.”

He pulled again. His fingers shook and twitched and his wrists trembled. Breathing hurt so he stopped. He closed his eyes and turned his head, straining to keep the strands in his hands and slowing the train down.

“Speed reduced to 85 %. Train derailment still imminent: ten seconds.”

“oh joy,” Peter muttered through clenched and ground teeth. 

“Speed is 83%, nine seconds. 80%, eight seconds. 75%, sev-”

“Just shut up already!” He shouted. Though he didn’t know if he was shouting to be heard over the snap he from his body or was that on the strands.

Karen flashed a serious of numbers and questions before his closed eyes. He didn’t see them. Didn’t need to. Peter knew the protocol; Mr. Stark set it up in case of some horrific moment. He’d trust Karen. He had to. 

Maybe this would make things right.

Probably not. 

But Peter couldn’t speak. He could barely think and listen and even hold on any more. Another snap. Then another. A thunderous crack coupled with a terrible screech. 

Peter pulled his arms, his hands, the ends of the web, in, a fly machine with the worst possibly settings. His body dug into the remains of the wall behind him, and there was no doubt that the sparks of pain came from edges of metal and glass and fire tearing into him. 

He wanted to scream. But his neck stretched and strained to keep still, to keep his chest from ripping itself off of him and his shoulders kept their hold on his arms. 

Peter wanted to scream. 

He forgot how. He didn’t have a voice did he?

In the distant, somewhere very far away and quiet, he heard a soft and kind voice, one that whispered to him often and gave so much help, say, “Derailment imminent.”

The world shook violently and abruptly. Everything bounced, and the dreadful retching noise of metal ripping apart metal covered the symphony that was New York City. 

Tension slacked in the webs. Or did he let go. 

He felt so far away, not floating or falling, but collapsing in the distance. While the whistle of the train flying through the air was all he heard, Peter didn’t see anything else. 

He wasn’t sure he was thankful for that. 

He wondered if the calls were sent out. He wondered what Aunt May would say. Or Ned. He wondered if-

#!#!#!#!#!#!#

A cold knife being slid through a stick of butter.

A new to flatten and bound off.

Rain falling. Filling. Flying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yay! another chapter. This story will end after 3, but it won't be the last. I have the following planned for future stories in this series:
> 
> (1). Aunt May finds Bucky before Cap does (and teaches him about hair care)  
> (2). Jessica Jones gets drunk and lost and finds herself in Queens  
> (3). Peter Parker and Shuri something something something (best bros these two)  
> (4). More on the daring tale of Michelle Jones dealing with Peter Parker's stupidity (and her own)
> 
> Any suggestions for what you'd like to see, or ideas, please feel free to leave them in a comment for me. 
> 
> FYI: I teach inner city Chicago, and we had midterms this week, hence why this chapter is much later than I'd like. My schedule is looking like every Wednesday, so that's the goal. At the very least, i'll post something (flash fiction or blurbish thing). 
> 
> As always, read and enjoy. Please review and comment; I love hearing from all of you and do try to comment back. 
> 
> Enjoy - why?  
> Because I can


	3. Who can stop me if I decide

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! Finally started writing again, after finishing Oathbringer by Sanderson(highly recommend), and well, this chapter needed to be finished. Hopefully people enjoy it. 
> 
> FYI - this is unbeta'ed and while I've done a few runthroughs of this chapter, there are probably a decent number of mistakes I still need to fix. Bear with me, I'll get them to.
> 
> Leave comments, questions, wise remarks. I'll respond best I can.
> 
> why? because I can

There is this brief moment just before waking up Michelle forgot. She forgot that her father is dead and her older sister never was home. She forgot that she was almost 17, a junior at Midtown and top of her class. That she has almost no close friends, barely any social life. That she is who she made herself to be in less than 6 months since she moved to New York in 8th grade. 

In that single heartbeat, Michelle was back, lying in a fluffy, comfortable, warm, pink bed, dwarfed by the amount of pillows stacked around her, and stuffed animals of all types, mythical and otherwise, encircled her (not that anyone would ever find out about them). Painted walls of a non-single color surrounded the room, filling it with fantasy and laughter and life. Sun creeped through blinds across a beige carpet, climbing up the sides of the bed and-

Her heart would beat, and the illusion (delusion really) would crumble away.

Her mind rarely stopped, even in dreams she ran from topic and image and idea to the next. Waking up, whether from an actual sleep or forced unconscious, she was off to the races and taking information about everything around her.

Including the bed she was on. A soft and comfortable bed. 

Michelle did a quick self-check: all limbs were still present, though extremely heavy and sore (bruises most likely as the pain wasn’t horrendous); her arms, especially her hands, were covered in bandages large and small, as was the rest of her, including one on her forehead that itched like crazy; her right shoulder was bound, not a cast; it hurt to be breathe, but not excoriating, so maybe bruised not broken ribs. Good. Possibly.

The reason for why she was in a bed in a condition? She twitched as that memory returned.

She could remember rolling and bouncing in a metal box, as a glass rained about her. Before that, speeding along on an elevated subway track after a loud explosion that rocked their car, third from the front. A trip. She planned on visiting the Wakanda Outreach Center in the Bronx for some literature they were releasing to the public; but the derailment derailed that plan [damn Parker for making her –

Michelle sat up and opened her eyes, pulling on the wires attached all over her. The heartbeat monitor behind her blared and the bright fluorescent lights stabbed her for a moment, but she blinked away the pain to see the rather posh and neatly set up hospital room. Where she was alone. 

A nurse ran in and stopped next to the heart monitor; he pressed a few buttons on it before turning his attention to Michelle. He didn’t touch her, or reach towards her in any way, but held out his hands in front of her, a soft barrier to keep her on the bed. “Whoa, easy there, sweetheart,” he said in a rich baritone. 

“Bite me, Florence,” Michelle said. “Where am I?”

The nurse laughed at her, but didn’t move away. Michelle tried to look around him, but the dark-skinned man was massive, taller than her mother in heels and certainly broader than a barn. Completely bald, with a small soul patch dyed white, he never stopped smiling. 

And moving too fast now that she was fully awake and breathing heavily was really _really_ dumb. 

She leaned back to the bed, which was no longer flat but angled for her, and eased her battered self down. At least she was wearing something more covering than a damn hospital dress. A set of beige scrubs with Velcro on the sides. “Stark Industries, medical wing.”

“Wha?” she said; the word was not happy in her throat as a pain jumped from her left side through her. 

“You were in an accident, Ms. Jones, and-“

“No shit, Sherlock,” she spat out. “Why am I here at SI, not whatever the hell was closer or, you know, a hospital or-“

“Michelle, my belle!” Stark’s voice echoed through the hallway into her room, without losing a single decibel of volume. 

“I will murder you, Stark, I swear on all that is electronic and-“

Tony Stark glided into the room, hands in his two hundred dollar black jeans, the five hundred faded and torn blue blazer hung on his shoulder too damn well not to be bespoken, and that distressed grey tee was too straight to be anything but tailored. She glared best she could from the reclined position. “Too damn stubborn to not be awake,” he said, smiling at her. “She good, Greg?”

The nurse laughed and nodded, checking a few monitors and typing on some-sort of blue screen on his forearm. “Yeah, got her pretty well bandaged up. Kept the meds low like she told you, and-“

“Right on,” Stark replied. “She good to go?”

“No sloams or luges, but yeah, think so,” Greg the nurse said. “Take the chair, though. Doc have me in a vice if something happened; maybe the kid too.”

“She is sitting right here,” Michelle said and gave each of them their own glare. Greg the nurse’s was a bit harsher, though not because he was worse that Stark, but he was still smirking at her as he walked over to a wheelchair, presumably for her. “So, talk to her, not about her.”

“An angel, I swear,” Stark replied. “Just takes some time for the verbal venom to stop.”

“You kidnapped me,” Michelle said. 

“Nah.” Stark nodded at Greg the nurse bringing the chair over to her then moving the side railing of the bed down for her. “Brought you here by request.”

“Not mine. definitely not mine.” Not that she could remember exactly what led here. The train crash, sure. That she remembered, at least bits and pieces up to the actual event. But the whole series of stuff afterwards? A blank slate. 

“Nope,” he popped the ‘p’, but kept his smile in place. “Given how hysterical you were at the site, May felt it better to get you here than keep you there. Sent word to your mom as well, a wonderful lady by the voice message FRIDAY got. Gonna get her a fruit basket or something.”

Why would May- “Where’s Peter?” she asked, scooting over to Greg the nurse to allow him help her onto the chair. Once seated and not in pain from the act, she tried to grab the wheels to start moving. 

Stark smiled at her, pushed her hands back to the railings, and grabbed the handles behind her. “I’ve got her, Greg,” he said. “Go forth and bug another patient.”

The nurse saluted him, that damn smile still on, and walked away. Leaving her alone with Stark. 

A dream come true. 

The silence laid over them as Stark pushed her slowly down the sterile grey and white hallway. Michelle wanted to just grab the wheels and propel herself down the halls until she found where she was going. Until she found that the whole “breathing” aspect was more difficult than she thought, and couple that with the ache in her hands, back, head, chest, and god fucking she hurt. 

But Peter, that fucking asshole just had to swoop in, and it really was a swoop of all things, to save them. It wasn’t like they were going to die. The chances of that were, well, Michelle didn’t actually want to think of that, but the fucker had been avoiding her for the past week, and now he comes out of nowhere to save her. Them. All of them. The train. Not just her. He couldn’t have known that she was there.

The hallway sped around her, but Michelle kept her eyes on her lap, looking just at her bandaged hands and the dozen or so bandaids on them, her arms, and plenty of other places she could feel across her legs and chest and face but couldn’t actually see. 

And Stark was speaking about something, and of course she wasn’t paying attention. 

“What?’ She said, finally looking up at him. 

Stark pulled up short at the elevator. “Snooze, overly-snarky Hermione. The spider’s in surgery.”

“That wasn’t what you said before,” Michelle glared at him. It was not effective. 

“I don’t tend to repeat myself.” The smirk said otherwise, but she didn’t really care. It would be something to argue for later, after she found out about Peter.

A soft ding and a brief flash of light echoed around them before the door opened up. He pushed her in, and without a word or another movement, the door closed and they were headed up. Quite a few floors given how the entire lift felt like it was moving. 

She closed her eyes and tried to steady her breathing. Too fast. They were moving too fast. Her ears might have popped too. No, they did, and she gasped, “How the fuck-“

“F.R.I.D.A.Y.,” Stark said, and the elevator slowed down to a reasonable, survivable rate. Michelle sucked in three breathes before she opened her eyes to glare at him. “Sorry, forgot that not many people-“

“Where the fuck are we going that requires that kind of speed?”

Stark looked sheepish enough. “What? Can’t handle Mach 1?”

“Not with bruised ribs and a concussion,” she said. She leaned back. Too much pressure forward. Too much up too. Everything ached. A dull, unwavering pressure that sat on her with the intention of reminding her of what she survived. 

Good. Pain meant she survived. She would get through this. Her and everyone else.

“We are here, Mr. Stark,” a disembodied voice said. Michelle shifted too quickly, and her ribs hated her. They spoke up in the only way they could that they didn’t like her: with a sharp stab of nothingness. 

“Right, before we go,” he stepped around the wheelchair and crouched in front of her, looking right at her. His eyes refused to sit still, shifting all over her face. She decided to just stare at his eyes inside. 

“What?”

He sighed and closed his eyes. “You need to understand something.”

“If this is about the loser being-“

“No, though, I have to say, you were hysterical screaming his name despite the pjs he was wearing at the time so maybe someone didn’t hear you, but that’s tomorrows problem,” he said. Michelle had the decency to blush, but she refused to look away. “Pete’s still in surgery.”

She wasn’t expecting that. Except, she kinda did. Whatever he did to slow down the cars meant he was at the front of them, and he would have been hit first when everything derailed. 

But for fuck’s sake, this was Peter Parker they were talking about. The kid’s indestructible, right? The bits of conversations she caught from Ned and Peter the past we months gave enough credence to it. Granted, that came with a whole slew of issues. 

“Kay.”

“He’s awake, mostly.”

That she wasn’t expecting. She leaned forward, despite the spike of pain starting in her ribs and echoing down her body, to grab him. “Awake? He’s awake? What the fucking kind of-“

“Mostly awake, my belle, I think I was pretty clear on that.” Michelle growled at him. Stark sighed and bowed his head. “His powers. He burns through pretty much every anesthetic they have, and even the pain killers aren’t doing much. The damage was significant enough surgery was needed, and his healing is interfering with removing the shrapnel, reset Dr. Cho was working on something, but-“

“Not like you could test it prior to this,” she said. He nodded. “So, where we going?”

“Observation lounge.”

“Mostly?” she caught up with his words.

“Yeah, he’s out of it pretty much, but occasionally winces and well – look, if you don’t want-“

“F.R.I.D.A.Y.,” Michelle said, “get us there, open the door, and led the fucking way.” 

The door opened and she leaned forward, grabbed her wheels with as much strength as she could and shoved forward with the grace of a Parker when Liz smiled at him. She didn’t move. Stark laughed, at her damn it, and grabbed the handles. He moved her with an ease, and she bit down her growl as he started to sing that fucking Beatles song again. 

The hallways were bare steel color, with a lights that weren’t fluorescent and didn’t reflect off the walls, giving it a warmth that didn’t belong. In some ways, this place mimicked a home. She felt welcomed and safe, even though no one else passed them as they walked. Numerous rooms behind frosted glass, a few open corridors and common areas. Places where people could gather and be together as the social animals they are; even when death is crawling into the rooms around them. 

She didn’t like that. A hospital should not be a home. Should not be as comfortable as one. Black and white tiles in a lazy pattern, if that even a pattern, and passed beneath her. Stark moved her in one then two turns. Then he stopped them in front of a double set of doors. Frosted glass showed a few bodies beyond them, though they didn’t move either. Three of them, each faced the same direction, though only one was extremely close to wall on their left, almost leaning on it. 

Michelle reached to push on the door, but the damn things jerked open, revealing a black man in a military jumpsuit. He had a brace around his waist, stretching down the sides of his hips, legs, and feet. A brief whirling noise as he stepped back to let them in. 

Other than a quick glance and seeing that he stayed out of her way, Michelle let him drift out of her mind. There were other things to care about. 

The room was like the hallway outside: bare and sterile with a soft glow that took away the distance she felt lived in hospitals as a permanent resident. Stark pushed her over to the floor to the ceiling window, then stepped away. Leaving Michelle sitting right next to May Parker.

The older woman stood leaning against the window, a hand wrapped around her waist and the other pressed against window, flat. Michelle didn’t want to follow her gaze. She didn’t want to see what was beyond the thin glass separating them from the operating center. 

She closed her eyes and turned to face the window. Beyond it, beyond the darkness she forced on herself. 

Peter was a good friend. A good hero. A good person, damn it. A cinnamon roll in a world of hot peppers and burnt burgers and useless trash. She wanted to hate him, when she was a freshman. No one could have been that good. The evidence acquired throughout three years of high school, coupled with the eight previous years of schooling, solidified that belief. But Peter existed as an outlier to all known understanding.. He helped other freshmen, stood up for a special needs student from being bullied, even gave his food away to someone who had forgotten their lunch. He was a good man. And he suffered because of it, apparently. 

He didn’t deserve this at all. He didn’t deserve this, the train, Liz’s Dad, or Uncle Ben. He certainly didn’t deserve the snap or that building that crashed on him (seriously, did he really think he could hide that from her). He didn’t deserve the bit that forced him into a role of a hero who helped old ladies cross the road or got kittens down from trees (he even played catch once with a little boy in the park – someone recorded it and shared the video of Spider-man throwing a ball horribly. Michelle may have sent it to Peter with a smug and slightly insulting and - ). 

A soft hand grazed her shoulder, a familiar touch. Michelle looked to her left and opened her eyes. May smiled down at her, tears in her eyes and a weariness that covered her. She wore her awful brown scrubs with dust and grim on them. “Thank you,” she said.

Michelle didn’t have words. 

“You found him,” she said. “You got to him first, when no one was looking for him. When no one knew to look for him. You got him out, and Stark carried him here.” She gripped her shoulder. “You brought him back to me.”

“I didn’t-“

“Michelle. You saved him.”

“He saved me. Us. All of us, I mean, and –“ She blinked, and somehow her face was wet. 

“You saved him,” May repeated. She knelt down and stared at Michelle. She couldn’t meet her eyes. 

“But…” Michelle looked over her shoulder, finally through the glass, to the archaic surgery being performed down below. 

Peter wasn’t sedated. Or if he was, the drugs were doing a very shitty job at it. They bound him to the table with metal straps across his head, shoulders, arms, waist, and legs. Three doctors or surgeons or someones stood around him pulling bits and pieces of rubble and remains from his shattered body. Vision, the android built by a stone that possessed power no single mortal (or group of mortals for that matter) should ever have been able to access, stood over his body, hands ready at the boy’s shoulders to hold the super-strong patient in place. 

“My boy isn’t the brightest is he?” May asked. “Lord, I love him, but he is dense sometimes.”

“Probably what saved him,” Michelle snapped out before she thought about it. May’s laugh, sudden and light, loosened the tightness within her chest, just a little bit. Not enough to make her feel better, but just enough to lightening that pressure. 

“The best way to stop a speeding train, on fire nonetheless, is to jump in front of it,” she said with a soft laugh. No fear or pain within the sound. How’d she do it? “Give a second or two, I’m sure he’d have had a better plan, but-“

“There wasn’t a second or two,” Michelle said. She leaned forward and put a hand on the glass. If she focused, really _really_ focused, she could pretend to feel his heartbeat, confirming he was alive. 

“No. No there wasn’t.” May squeezed her shoulder.

The rest of the vigil occurred without Michelle, and she felt better about that than trying to say anything. Behind her, the adults talked about the whole mess: Peter’s surgery, his soon-to-occur recovery, the train crash itself. Words coalesced around Michelle; she refused to listen to them. A sense of finality and certainty coated every one without any dread that she expected shivered underneath. Everyone was so certain that he’d be okay, that Peter be alright. 

She wanted to have that faith, have any faith really. 

How can all of them be certain that he’d be alright?

Somewhere, in a voice that she had avoided so long but had been stepping out more and more, especially whenever Peter was concerned, spoke to her, a breathe on the wind that passed as quickly as it came: 

Because it would be easier to erase half the stars than stop Peter from being Peter. 

!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#

“Sup, loser.”

Peter was not expecting to hear those words. Not in heaven, where he doubted the variety of language was acceptable. Not in Hell, because, well, he didn’t think it was possible to mimic her tone, emphasis, or overall apathy. And she was the type of person who never belonged in the latter.

“Umm,” he slurred, “my blood pressure.”

But the words didn’t leave his mouth. He swallowed then. No, he swallowed nothing. Felt nothing. He couldn’t sense the texture of whatever he was on or the cloths he may or may not be wearing, if anything covered any part of him. He couldn’t see anything except an encompassing whiteness. 

“Wanna try again? Maybe phone a friend?”

He tried to open his mouth, but nothing responded. Peter wasn’t even sure he had a mouth.

“Assuming a dumbass like you feels the need for, you know, friends and family.”

Huh? What was-‘

“What with the danger your sheer existence places everybody around you, especially the ones close to you.”

Peter had eyes. He knew that. It was how he saw things. But why was it so bright and white?

“It’s not like humans or whatever you are – human mutate? Spider mutant? The splicing of genius and dumbass, heavily favored on the dumbass side? Whatever, the point I’m trying to rattle to you is that humans function better with people. Not that you’re actually listening, what with being unconscious and all that.”

Oh. He’s asleep? So this was a dream? Not asleep. Sleep never felt so airy and calm – sleep confined and covered him until he couldn’t breathe or move. So definitely not sleeping. Something else. There was a word, Peter was certain of it, to describe this sensation; it was air in a jar, and he just swung it around and around, hoping to catch the right word, but the next one would simply replace whatever was previously held within the glass object. What was this whole thing called again? What was he-

“So now that you can’t run from me, and if you tell anyone this, I’ll kill you Parker and no one will find the body, not even May and I adore her, but umm.. I can’t hide from you either, what with Stark practically throwing money around to get us near each other, and yeah…”

Where were they? They? Who owned this sweet voice, talking to him? Peter? That’s his name right? Then who spoke to him? He knew the person: female, his age (right?), kind beyond words and a softness that never showed except in a glimpses between clouds on moonless night. 

Friend. She was a friend. 

Something touched him, comforted him; a small source of heat, no, not heat but warmth, in a soft swishing pattern on a part of him away from him. Held, that was the word he needed. Someone held him, comforted him.

“You kept trying to pull away. Idiot. Like May or Ned’d let you. Like I…, well, you’re not getting away that easily. W…, I mean they won’t let you.”

Peter knew this person. Knew them well, and they were important. She. She was. She mattered.

“Frankly,” she said, her voice grew soft but not distant, “I didn’t think I’d do this. Ever. Like, ever ever. With anyone. I’d just deal with all that you brought into my life, and move on, and you’d be mentioned as a footnote at most in my biography. But it seems you, being you, had to go and do something stupid. Like really stupid. Far beyond-“

“Michelle,” Peter said, his words falling from his lips in some sort of intelligible manner he hoped, “if this is gonna be a lecture on physics of the whole crash, I already calculated it. I think.”

She gasped, just as soft but certainly delighted.

The fog in his mind remained, but it lessened. He found a beacon to follow and focus on. He could sense his body, the aches and pains beyond that sleepless and empty fog of nonawareness. Bandages wrapped around his chest; plaster and metal crisscrossed his arms and legs; and tubes stretched from his nose. The fog, though cut by a siren’s call, floated along in time with a gentle beeping somewhere further away. 

Michelle squeezed his hand, her fingers intertwined with his. 

“Sup, loser.”

“You said,” he took a long uneven breath. “Ow.”

“In pain.” He nodded slowly; Peter couldn’t open his eyes yet. They were still too heavy and he was pretty certain one was swollen shut. “Yeah, they said the painkillers won’t work for you. Something about you being dumb and not listening to them. Or was it your mutated genes?”

“Huh?” Peter asked and tried to sit up. “What did-“

“Easy there, loser,” Michelle said, holding his hand tightly. She pressed, no just placed her hand on his shoulder. “you’ve taken a beating. Lose a fight with a train? A building?”

“Michelle, what are you-“

“MJ. My friends call me MJ. And we are friends, despite your recent attempts.”

Peter shook his head, and the fog flared up. She said something about his jeans, no genes, and he tried to remember through the stabbing pain in his chest, the dull & powerful ache centered on his shoulders, legs, and well, the rest of him.

“That’s right,” she said. The bed shifted down, and he felt her breath on his face. “Spidey.”

Peter opened his eyes.

Michelle had numerous bruises on her face, fresh and still red, accompanied by an equal number of cuts, some with bandages and gauze while others were too small for anything beyond a cleaning. Her left arm hung in a sling, and she sat with pressure on her right side; not leaning into him, but just near him, almost touching him. 

“How did you-“

“You are a terrible poker player.” She smiled. The beeping near-yet-far spiked for a beat. Panic cause she knew? Or panic because of the smile?

Peter shook his head. “No. I mean, what happened?” He lifted his right arm, fighting the heaviness settled within, to touch her face. Michelle leaned into it, covering his hand with hers. “How’d you get hurt?”

“Third car.” She smiled softly at him and closed her eyes. “I was in the third car when we derailed. When a certain friendly neighborhood dumbass decided to jump in front of train as a means of stopping it.”

The accident. The elevated train runaway, speeding to a curve it jumped.

“Course,” she added, her smile growing, “because of said friendly neighborhood dumbass, I lived with some minor-ish injuries. Nothing life threatening, but just a bit disfiguring. Like I said, nothing.”

“You got hurt,” Peter whispered. Michelle’s smile slipped away.

“You saved so many people Peter. More than who would have lived if you hadn’t been there.”

“People died?”

Michelle closed her eyes and leaned harder into him. She nodded, but didn’t speak. She didn’t need to, her presence was good enough to tell him what he needed. When he tried to pull his hand away, she held it tightly. She didn’t let go. “People lived, focus on that, nerd,” she said. 

Peter closed his eyes and turned his head instead, just so he didn’t have to look at another person who suffered because of him. He tried to focus on those who lived, on saving lives. But he was smart. He could do the math. It wasn’t hard for him to estimate how many people-

Michelle let go of his hand and flicked his nose. Hard.

“Ow.” He shrieked, not loudly, and, not for the first time, wondered why the hell his spidey-sense didn’t warn him of danger. Damn thing seemed to go off at the slightest movement sometimes. 

“No.”

“No? What do – Why did you-“

She flicked him again and shook a finger at him. “I said no. No thinking like that. You don’t get to be a martyr for something that wasn’t even close to being your fault.”

“You can’t just-“ she went to flick him a third time, but he caught her wrist. A bit too hard. He felt her wrist: the bones, the tendon. He felt them all shift under his grip, and it may have been imagination, but he could have sworn he heard it too. 

But she didn’t cry out. She didn’t show any expression. Not of pain; not of fear. Nothing. She just smiled, a soft and subtle smile he saw when he actually made her laugh and she didn’t want the world to know. And it was directed at him. That didn’t stop Peter from knowing what he did. “Michelle, I am so… Thor almighty that-“

“Peter?”

“That’s your drawing hand, I mean, that’s not a question, cause you use your right hand for drawing even though you write left handed and-“

“Peter?” she repeated.

“I don’t think I broke it, but it might be a sprain or fracture, I couldn’t-“

“Relax,” she said. Michelle leaned down, her nose a few inches from his. “Hey loser.”

“Hey,” Peter replied. She stared right at him, focused on him. He couldn’t look away. Didn’t want to. 

“It’s okay.”

“Michelle, I-“

“MJ.”

“MJ, I think, no I know that at the very least, it’s a sprain. Maybe a fracture, and-“

“Probably.” She didn’t pull away. 

“How can you be so calm?”

She shrugged, the smile widening slightly. “I figure it isn’t right between the two of us if we both panic, and you being you, So I’ve got to adult for the both of us.”

Peter let go of her, dropping his arm to the bed. “That isn’t right, you shouldn’t have to.”

“You shouldn’t have to deal with anxiety and trauma as much as you do.”

“This isn’t a competition.”

“No, I know that,” she said. “You would have won the shit life award years ago.”

“A trophy?”

“Big one, like taller than you, so maybe like a foot tall.”

He snorted. “What I meant was-“

“Shut up, nerd.” Michelle learned forward with her body this time, bracing her elbow next to him, until her chest almost touched his. Until she almost touched him. “I know what you meant. I was teasing you.”

“Why would you-“

“It’s how people treat people they like.” She rolled her eyes and didn’t move away. “More than.”

“Michelle.

“I’m gonna poke you again if you don’t get it right.”

“I mean, MJ,” Peter looked away, at anything other than her, “I don’t understand.”

He couldn’t look at her, except he kept looking at her, counting every bruise and cut over and over again. Seventeen. It never changed. 

And that smile was still wonderful.

“I’ll probably have to tell you this more than once,” she whispered. Why did she get softer all the sudden? Why did she look away? What was- “Because in addition to being oblivious to just about everything, you tend to be the dumbest genius I know.”

“Wait until you met Mr. Pym.”

“Eww, no,” she crinkled her nose and every harsh line and feature softened. And Peter couldn’t help but stare. “No. Just no. Promise me you won’t ever introduce him to me.”

He laughed softly, but nodded. 

“As the dumbest genius I know, I’m certain that you’ll get it into your thick, dense, hard skull that we can’t be whatever you’d be comfortable calling it. Or even friends,” she continued. “That I’m in danger cause I know you, as if that’s the only thing that causes my life to be in danger. Because I know your secret, which seriously you and Ned need to not, like, talk. Ever. At all. Cause you absolutely suck at being subtle. On so many, many fronts.” 

Her smile was contagious. Peter felt it grow on his face.

“You do not decide my life,” she said. “You do not decide my fate. You don’t get to make decisions about what I can or can not do until you put a ring on my finger.” 

The smile shifted into a smirk, and Peter blushed. 

“Even then, I’d take your advice under consideration, but you do not get to make decisions. I choose my destiny. Not you. Not anyone. Only me. Well maybe you can help.”

Peter stared at her lips. He heard the words. He understood them, the sentiment behind them, kinda, at least if it were a literary assignment he’d get it but still. The words together in the order they were said from who said them with a very specific and obvious inflection had meaning. A lot of it. 

But the meaning refused to settle. 

“Stay.” She leaned back away from him, backing up carefully. Michelle took his hand and squeezed it, then slid off the bed, away from him. “Gonna get Aunt May come yell at you now. Maybe a few doctors. Stark. That awesome robot-android too.”

“You said something about a ring.”

Michelle paused at the door. “Did I? Well, unlike some, I tell the truth.”

“What did you mean?”

“Use that brain of yours. You’re a genius. Figure it out.”

Michelle left him lying in the hospital bed, to him thoughts which refused to settle on anything except the words she left him with. “Oh, one more thing,” she said, poking her head back into the room. “If you try to pull the same crap and ditch me, Ned, May, anyone, cause of some stupid nobility-thing? I will kill you, Spider-man.”

For the first time around her that Peter could remember, his spidey-sense finally went off, warning him of the danger that she held within her words. The truth in them.

Great. Another thing to figure out.

And he’d done so well on his own before.


End file.
